✍️ I am writing a book about self-hosting 📖

Hey fellow nerds 👋

For a long time, I had this book idea in my head and I am finally putting some ink on the pages. Not real ink, don't be silly. It is digital ink. I have the draft for my table of contents ready and already started writing with currently 40 written pages.

This book is mostly for me. Actually, for myself a few years ago. Someone who liked IT but did not know where and how to start. No friends and family to ask about IT since nobody was into it or had some kind of experience.

I want to get people who have a slight interest in self-hosting a map. This map shall bring you to the destination to self-host all these awesome applications with Docker on Ubuntu. Since I do not want to create a book that is outdated in a month or two. This will not be a step-by-step guide. This does not make much sense. I want to create a bird's eye view of the different topics so you know what you need to look up and can start implementing your solution for yourself. You need to learn and figure out the doing yourself, but I can tell you what it is you have to figure out. How can you search for something which you do not know does exist, right?

There are an endless amount of possible ways to self-host applications. Look at the sheer amount of Linux distros out there. As someone who just starts that is just too much and an opinionated guide can help them to get going.

Also, this is not for established self-hosters. You might learn a tidbit here and there, but I am not targeting people, who are doing all this for years.

Why do I want to write this book?

I am not sure why, but I have had this urge to write a book for quite some time now. I feel like I have gained enough experience in order to write something useful.

Also, I want to help people who are struggling like I was a few years back. Thanks to this hobby I got into IT and work for a cloud provider offering Platform as a Service solutions for our customers. I have learned a lot which can be helpful for home users as well.

Questions I want to answer

This is basically my table of contents. Maybe the order might change but these are the core topics. I might have forgotten something since this is a work in progress.

Why and what can I self-host? Is it cheaper to self-host?

What hardware can and should I use? Do I need enterprise hardware? Is this new ARM board right for me?

What operation system should I use?
I will focus on Ubuntu but will also mention popular solutions like TrueNAS, Proxmox, etc.

How do I access my server locally?
Explaining some basic network-related topics without boring you to death on how IPs are calculated.

How do I use the command line?
Intro to some basic commands and some tips and tricks which make your life easier.

What filesystem should use?
Especially important for people to build their own NAS. Going into BTRFS, ZFS, mergers, and more.

How much ram do I need?
Going a bit deeper into memory usage. A lot of things said about RAM and SWAP are just wrong on the internet.

How to check for logs?

How to debug network problems?
Showing a few useful commands and what you need to check for.

How to do backups?
Mentioning tools and processes on how to do them.

How to install and run applications?
Comparing VMs, docker, and package managers. Explaining the pros and cons. Then going deeper into Docker because that shall be the preferred solution.

How do I make my applications available on the internet?

How do I accomplish basic security?

❤️That is it for today!❤️

Let me know your thoughts on the self-hosted book idea. I will be reaching out to beta readers soonish on my mailing list. Be sure to sign up here if you want to get updates or be part of the beta readers group.

If you know people who would be interested in the self-hosted book then remember to forward this mail and share via social media or your favorite messenger.  

Have a great day!